


Buck Rogers in the 21st Century

by captaindumbass



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Awesome Shuri (Marvel), Biphobia, Bisexual Male Character, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Coming Out, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gay Bucky Barnes, Gay Male Character, I'm sorry this fic is really soppy, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mutual Pining, Past Brainwashing, Pining, Pre-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Slice of Life, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Wakanda, somebody stop me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2019-06-08 12:58:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15243879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captaindumbass/pseuds/captaindumbass
Summary: Bucky cleared his throat before speaking to Steve. He’d thought of what he would say as the first words as himself, James ‘Bucky’ Barnes to Steve Rogers in well over 70 years. He thought about pulling him aside and telling him that amongst the irrational chaos of the universe, amongst the birth and death of stars, the fall of countries, the rise of regimes , against time itself, that they had lived and died together many lifetimes ago and yet in face of impossibility were pulled together under every possibility, their fates intertwined in the forge of a supernova, and that had to mean something.Bucky mustered, “You look terrible.”Close enough.(Bonus chapter/work is currently being written)





	1. Chapter 1

“Bucky?” Shuri asked, “Are you ready?” 

She pushed a braid behind her ear and glanced over at Bucky, who was sat on one of the smallest chairs in the room. His brow furrowed and pensive. 

‘  
_  
Are you ready?  
_  
’ The words rumbled through his head faster than Cyclone at Coney Island. The phrase wasn’t a question, it was a statement. It didn’t matter if he wasn’t ready, he was going in head first regardless. He had never really been ready, for anything. He hadn’t been ready for the war despite nodding sharply when Steve asked him in the middle of the night, when the only sounds between them were bustle of New York’s streets and the occasional crackle of Steve’s lungs. He wasn’t ready to jump onto that train and he certainly wasn’t ready to see the drop on Steve’s face as the metal handle snapped. He wasn’t ready to become a weaponized force of nature, even though his programming nodded and muttered,   
_  
‘yes sir’  
_  
whilst beads of sweat trickled down his neck and onto the cool metal of his arm. He wasn’t ready for that day on the bridge. He wasn’t ready for Steve again, nothing could have prepared him for Steve again. 

Bucky swallowed hard and nodded once, pointedly. 

He could hear the footsteps echo down the hallway, he could count three sets. Two heavier men and one lighter. One sounded like they walked with a limp by the drag of a boot on the palace floors. Bucky tapped the metal on his new arm in pace with the steps. He paused and held his breath when the footsteps halted.

“I know how you feel about him” Shuri interrupted. 

“Who?” Bucky quizzed, his head snapping towards the princess who was flicking her finger across a holographic screen.

“Danny Devito   
_  
obviously  
_  
” she answered, not lifting her eyes from the screen.

Bucky glared at her confused. She was slightly annoyed that she wasted the reference on someone who wouldn't get it. 

“Steve” she smiled softly whilst rolling her eyes. Bucky had been around her enough to know that humour was her way of broaching a slightly difficult subject. 

“I don't know you're talking about” 

Bucky knew. Of course Bucky knew. He tried to contain it, but he felt it seep from every part of him uncontrollably. Even before his memories fully returned something deep inside him swelled like a hot air balloon when he imagined the curve of his lips or his crooked nose or the slight or breadth of his shoulders he knew that his sun rose and set with Steve Rogers.

“I’ve been around in there, I know things?” She tapped two fingers to her temple, her eyes creasing. 

“I feel violated” Bucky responds, fake shock infiltrating his works “Does T’Challa know about this?”

“I’ll tell him what really happened to that prototype” He raised his eyebrows and smirked and let the smirk grow into a grin.

“You wouldn’t” Shuris eyes narrowed. 

Bucky nonchalantly fixed the stray piece of hair that fell onto his forehead, “I would”.

Shuri nodded in agreement, “Yeah you would,” She put down the holographic tablet on the Mango wood table, “I’m a genius scientist, not a magician. Plus I think if I actually dug around in there I’d get dumber just for looking”

“You’re almost as bad as Sam”, Bucky stood up as he could feel the footsteps start again.

“As I said before, gotta meet this Sam guy”

Bucky knew she and Sam would get along. Primarily based on the idea that they would find any new and novel way to rip the shit out of Bucky. 

Suddenly a heavy knock clattered against the door of Bucky’s quarters. He inhaled sharply and then breathed deeply like he was sucking in the remaining oxygen in the room. 

At first Bucky’s eyes met T’Challa’s kind eyes, who then smiled a small poignant smile and nodded. There was a feeling that Bucky couldn’t avoid when he looked at T’Challa and his sister, like gross amalgam of guilt and debt that burned in the pit of his stomach everytime they smiled kindly, gave him a hot meal or reversed the effects of years of Soviet programming. There was nothing he could do to in a thousand lifetimes to repay the kindness they had shown him. Although, he suspected T’Challa enjoyed the relief of Shuri picking on someone else for a while. 

Okoye followed by T’Challa’s side, her face was stern and unwavering as it always was. He’d catch the glimpse of her smile occasionally, it softened her immeasurably. Before Bucky could ever take in the full beauty of her loosened face she would pull it back sternly. It made sense, something about the creases in her eyes and the whiteness of her teeth against the darkness of her skin made her entirely less terrifying.

A broad man with long blonde hair, pushed back with dirt and sweat and a thick beard entered after them. His face was smeared with what looked to be earth and blood. A cut over his left eyebrow and a bruise on his left temple that adorned the gash like a halo. Asides from the slight crookedness of his nose and the blue of his eyes he could barely compare this rugged nomad with the blonde haired boy from Brooklyn.

Bucky sprung from the stool instinctually and took two hasty paces towards the centre of the room. 

“Buck” Steve muttered and raced in front of T’Challa and Okoye, the latter giving an unappreciative look. Steve moved so quickly he’d forgotten that he’d just pushed a king out of the way.

Bucky hadn’t just imagined this moment, he’d dreamed of it, day and night. The moment had become him, almost defining his whole existence after he stepped out of the ice in Shuri’s lab. He never told anyone this but there were parts of the war he really didn’t mind, he didn’t really understand the forlorn longing for seaside towns, home cooking and a dame with cherry lips as a place to call home. It took him 70 years to realise it was because in the dirt of the barracks, the bitterness of the mountains and in the pit of war, his home was with him all along. And as he embraced Steve, finally breathing the same air again, there was nothing in Bucky telling him that he would survived without this moment. 

Steve clasped his large palm over the back of Bucky’s neck as he loosened their embrace slightly. He could feel everything in him unravel to the touch, it took almost all that he had not burst into tears in an instant. Bucky glanced at Steve’s face like he always had up close, in careful glances, like the way you’d glance at the sun. He could feel the heat rise in his cheeks, he guessed that was better than tears.

As he glanced away from Steve, he could see Okoye muttering to Shuri, Okoye’s eyebrows raised and her eyes wide like she’d just seen a dog walk on its hind legs and rob a bank. Shuri looked a little less shocked with a bright grin accented with smugness spread across her youthful features. 

Bucky cleared his throat before speaking to Steve. He’d thought of what he would say as the first words as himself, James ‘Bucky’ Barnes to Steve Rogers in well over 70 years. He thought about pulling him aside and telling him that amongst the irrational chaos of the universe, amongst the birth and death of stars, the fall of countries, the rise of regimes , against time itself, that they had lived and died together many lifetimes ago and yet in face of impossibility were pulled together under every possibility, their fates intertwined in the forge of a supernova, and that had to mean something. 

Bucky mustered a, “You look terrible”. Close enough.

“Buck” Steve smiled back and leaned out of their prolonged embrace. 

“Punk”, Bucky folded his arms to make up for the absence of Steve.

“We’ve had your bags put in Sergeant Barnes’ other room” T’Challa interjected, “Shuri insisted that you’d prefer that to a seperate quarters”.

“She was absolutely right,” Steve smiled at Shuri, broad and genuine.

Shuri smirked and wiggled her eyebrows at Okoye again, who looked a little less confused than last time. T’Challa, who had caught a glimpse of the interaction looked more confused than ever. Even more confused than when Bucky tasted a ‘new banana’ for the first time. 

“That would be too extravagant for me, thank-you for the consideration though.” Steve offered his hand to T’Challa who took it in a firm grip.

He glanced over his battered and bruised friend with caution in his large brown eyes. Although, Steve’s unwavering smile put to rest any real concerns he had.

“It’s a pleasure as always Captain, we’ll leave you to get cleaned up and rest.” T’Challa shook Steve’s hand firmly.

“Thank-you, T’Challa”

After letting go of Steve’s hand T’Challa nodded towards Okoye and Shuri. As they turned to leave, Steve touched Shuri’s shoulder lightly. It reminded Bucky of how carefully he’d hold a pencil as he’d let it dance across the paper he’d salvaged from the butcher’s cut that day.

“Shuri, I just” He sighed, smiled and started to blush, from the nape of his neck to the peaks of his hairline, if anything the pink glow made his words even that more genuine, “I,I can’t thank-you enough”.

Shuri nodded once and smiled proudly and wandered towards her brother and Okoye who are still standing in the doorway. If Bucky didn’t know better, he’d think she had a schoolgirl crush on Steve.

Okoye lifted her hand and gestured towards to the large bearded super soldiers, “they’re all so handsome but why are they always so dirty?”

Steve and Bucky laughed together, Bucky stopped just quick enough to see Steve carefully push back a stray hair that has fallen into his face.

“Yeah, T’Challa where are you finding all these sad white men, Wakanda isn’t a Smiths concert?” Shuri retorted, nodding in agreement with Okoye’s sentiment.

“The who?” T’Challa asked, Bucky could sense that he wasn’t going to like having Shuri’s taunts directed at him again instead of Bucky for the duration of Steve’s stay.

“No, The Smiths.” She responded, her eyes deadpan. There was a pause before Okoye erupted into laughter. The women looked over at the three men staring blankly, two out of time the other simply out of touch with any music that wasn’t native Wakandan. The siblings gave small waves and headed out the door, followed by Okoye and a dull thunk as the door closed behind them.

Bucky laughed lightly, as he felt it was the right thing to do, plus their laughter is more contagious than chicken pox.

“I don’t understand the reference,” Steve stated slowly, looking at Bucky for guidance and clarification. 

Bucky shook his head and laughed again,“Neither do I buddy”.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> unbeta'd all mistakes are my own

* * *

“I’m sorry for not being here when you woke up, Buck” Steve’s eyes were solemn and unwavering.

Bucky knew It wasn't like Steve to break a promise like this. Whatever happened, it must have been as hard as closing a black hole with your bare hands, “Don’t be sorry.” 

Steve’s lips hardened into a line and his eyebrows knitted together, the dry blood on his brow flaking with the movement. He sighed and looked around the room, almost defeated in his emotions. 

“I promised that I would be here, and I broke that promise”, Steve lifted his hand and placed it on Bucky’s shoulder and gave a comforting squeeze. Bucky didn’t want to accept the apology because there really wasn’t anything to apologize for. He knew there was good reason for Steve’s lateness and battered appearance. Steve turned up with a cracked rib to look after Bucky’s sisters when he had boxing practise. Steve Rogers does not let the world get him down.

Bucky nodded.

“You look like you’ve been thrown out of a B52 Bomber,” Bucky chuckled. He felt Steve’s grip loosened on his shoulder and the tension dissipated slightly.

“I feel like it” Steve released his hand from Bucky’s shoulder and began to rub his shoulder joint through the thick suit. The suit was apparently bulletproof but apparently couldn’t withstand the force of Steve’s grip.

“What happened?” Bucky perched himself back on the stool he had started on. 

“Got ambushed by a rogue Hydra faction, just on my way out of Tunisia”

God Steve looked tired, so tired. He hadn’t seen him look like this since the winter of the Ardennes Offensive, the black circles around his eyes like pockets of soot against a backdrop of snow in the Dutch countryside. Guilt bubbled inside Bucky like battery acid, he knew that this was to do with him. 

Steve sighed heavily, it was audible throughout the room. With the sigh came a short smile, Steve’s full lips flicking up at the sides. The small smile morphed into a wide grin. Even under the layers of dirt clear relief had spread over his face. 

“I'm good, you're good, Buck,” and with another sigh, Steve plonked himself on the edge of Bucky’s bed. The sheets jumping as he impacted the mattress. 

Steve laid back on to the bed. Something warm and familiar buzzed inside Bucky. Steve was in a new body, a new country and a new time but he still felt like himself enough to flop onto Bucky’s bed like it was his own. His eyes scanned over Steve’s battered uniform, the tear under his ribcage, the burns upto the knees and the spots of suspicious black liquid that had formed in neat constellations across his chest. He focused on Steve’s face, his eyes were closed and a childlike serenity adorned his face. However, despite the relaxation there were still flecks of ash in Steve’s long eyelashes. He couldn’t help but laugh. Bucky had always been the tidy one, he remembered this now. From the loose hairs that would fall into Steve’s eyes to the charcoal dust and the dirty paint brushes that he would find scattered around the apartment. The dirt and the blood? Bucky wasn’t a fan of that, but times change.

“You look good Buck, the long hair actually suits you" Steve spoke slowly, keeping his eyes closed. 

Bucky watched Steve’s chest rise and fall. 

“Hmmm, oh” Bucky stroked his beard as he felt a blush rise up his cheeks and shook his head, “My ma would kill me if she saw it like this.”

Steve laughed from the bed, deep and loud. “You kinda look like that asshole Bec dated”

Bucky leaned forward and bashfully rubbed the back of his neck. Bucky had found out Becca had married that guy. Bucky never liked him when he knew him and he was never really sure why. His eyes were large and gentle and glowed golden brown like lamplight shining through an expensive whiskey. He was respectful and kind especially to Becca and the other girls in their neighbourhood, even in the times where men weren’t. Bucky knew there had to be something wrong, a smudge on the camera lense of happiness. He confided this in Steve, worried about his sister, Steve took Bucky’s side of course trusting him with every fibre of his small body and large spirit. Steve had always been a little foolish in that regard. 

It took Bucky awhile but eventually he realised. He realised why the strange contemptuous bird rattled in his chest everytime he looked at Becca and her husband to be. Love. The word hit him deep and sharp in the gut like a dum-dum bullet ready to explode. Once he realised it was that he was easy to realise that it was he couldn’t have that. Love with it’s soft sunday mornings and living room slow dances, a hand entwined with his own and the song that makes you feel like home. He realised he couldn’t have it the same way, he wanted the hand around his waist to be male and more importantly, he wanted that hand to be Steve’s. Bucky knew Steve loved him fiercely and without question but it wasn’t a Sunday morning kind of love. 

Bucky shrugged, “She married him actually.” 

“Oh?” Steve propped himself up on his elbows. 

“He’s a good guy actually, I overreacted, overprotective brother stuff”, Bucky turned away quickly and tapped through the electronic record collection Shuri had carefully put together for him. She had built him a machine where he could use one record, place it on her machine and pick any song, artist or album that he could ever dream of on the screen and have it play. Bucky was pretty sure the record bit was just for show but it was a nice touch.He tapped Mildred Bailey’s  _ If You Ever Should Leave _ and Steve hummed in recognition. This was Bucky’s Sunday morning song, but Steve didn’t need to know that. 

Bucky leaned against the counter and laughed, “I’m an uncle, a great uncle even. God that sounds so  _ weird  _ coming out of my mouth” 

“It was gonna happen at some point” Steve added, flopping back down onto the bed.

“She wanted to marry you after the serum,” Bucky laughed, it was true but it always puzzled him that nobody could see how great Steve was even before that. 

“Could have been an uncle to your kid” Steve responded, smiling lightly as he stared at the ceiling.

Bucky clicked his tongue and feigned disappointment, “Damn, could have been connected by blood and marriage. We missed a trick there Stevie.”

Steve waved his hand from the bed,“Slow down Buck or you’ll hurt that new… old brain of yours” he paused after a slight sadness gathered in his voice, “how do you like Wakanda?”

Bucky whilsted long and sharp and looked off into where he guessed the horizon was, “If you'd have told me back in my dock days that there was a secret super advanced African country under an invisibility  _ thing _ . I would have called you a lunatic, but I guess there's a lot that we have now that we didn't have back then” 

“You guess?” Steve responded softly, Bucky could hear the smile on Steve’s lips. 

He shrugged and returned the smile, using the fact that Steve wasn’t looking in his direction as an excuse to fully let the idea that he’d made Steve smile spread all over his own face,“Well we still don't have flying cars”

“No thanks to Stark” Steve mumbled, the rise and fall of his chest getting deeper and smoother as he held back the thick sheath of tiredness that was overcoming him. 

“He's definitely holding out on us” 

Bucky thought back to that night before he shipped off. In retrospect, it was a strange way to say goodbye to Brooklyn, to Steve, in a room where his past and the future collided so vigorously under the multi coloured glow of Stark’s fireworks. He sighed and thought of Steve’s disquiet face lit up in a pallet of orange and pink, “I just don't know how to react to it all y’know.”

The sound of delicate horns and Mildred Bailey’s vocals filled the room in the absence of Steve’s answer. Steve’s breath became audible. It was audible in a way that Bucky still had trouble getting used to. The breaths were deep and full rather than sharp and short like he was always used to, he could hear the rattle on Steve’s lungs from a mile away. The rattle became strangely comforting to Bucky, especially when he’d awaken in the darkness not sure of the time or his position in the universe, Steve’s breathing always brought him back to earth. Steve had probably made the twelve labours of hercules look easy today so Bucky decided to let him rest. 

Bucky carefully exited the room. He decided to leave the music playing as he knew how much Steve used to enjoy dozing whilst listening to the radio.

He wandered through the corridors of the palace, his socked feet not making a sound and the polished floors made it difficult to get anywhere fast. He liked that idea though, it made him feel normal and exposed for the first time in a long. Even an especially trained assassin wouldn’t be able to make the smoothest getaway without skidding at least a little bit. As he was concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other and not the sleeping supersoldier on his bed he almost didn’t hear the approaching footsteps. 

He looked up before colliding with Okoye, who looked quietly amused by the former super assassin being humbled by an especially polished floor. 

“Okoye, I'm sorry” Bucky muttered, placing his hands in the air in submission. 

“Why?” She asked, quirking her eyebrow upwards. She didn’t look angry but Bucky still hadn’t cracked her in the same way he had managed with Shuri. Shuri was easy at least, sometimes painful and embarrassing but easy. 

“I don't know…” He responded, inhaling and crossing his arms over his chest. 

Okoye examined him for a while, his hunched figure and his long hair falling out of the messy bun at the nape of his neck. Bucky knew his body language was singing a symphony of nerves and insecurity but there was too much on his mind to try and hide it and he was pretty sure that Okoye would be able to see through that anyway. 

“Your boyfriend is very handsome,” she stated, looking at the creases on Bucky’s forehead. They looked especially deep under the low lighting of the corridor. 

“What?” Bucky’s head shot up so quickly he swear he heard one of his vertebrae scream. 

She started laughing heartily and tapped her chest, “Shuri gave me this little camera to tape your reaction”

“Of course she did” Bucky groaned, “So?”

“I owe her $15” Okoye whispered covering the small camera on her chest, evidently hoping that Shuri wouldn’t hear.

Bucky sighed and refrained from rolling his eyes, “I'm not going to ask about it.”

Okoye stuck out her bottom lip and nodded thoughtfully, “It's probably best if you don't.”

She must of seen something in Bucky’s reaction because her face softened in a way that he hadn’t seen before. Although it wouldn’t have been difficult to see it. He’d gotten used to suppressing any emotion under Hydra’s control, but Steve’s name was like another trigger word. He could feel fondness emit from his face like energy from a dying neutron star. 

“He's been through hell on earth for you, I think he took down an entire military faction alone to get here” 

Bucky knew that didn’t indicate anything that he didn’t already know. 

“I think he’d do it anyway, he used to do stuff like that all the time, even when he was tiny” he paused and waved his left hand, “now he just wins the fights”

Okoye waited thoughtfully, not taking her eyes off Bucky,“Maybe so”.

Bucky shifted uncomfortably from her gaze and her eyes followed him.

“But your boy is very loyal, I don't know much about him but I know he would tear down a country for you,"

Bucky couldn’t help the warmness grow in his chest and his cheeks. The warmness was familiar and dangerous. He didn’t want to get suckered into the warmness of a picture of the future with Steve that only Bucky wanted.

Okoye smiled at him tenderly, her smile turning into a quick smirk,“Shuri says the blush suits you."

Bucky scoffed sarcastically. He was relieved that the fondness in his chest was quickly hijacked by the fondness he feels for Shuri. She reminded him of Becca in a lot ways. Not the super genius way but in a lot other ways. Bucky was happy to at least gain some semblance of family again in this new shiny future. In that thought he realised that he only needed Steve as family and anything else would simply be unrealistically selfish.

Bucky leaned into the microphone on Okoye’s camera and whispered playfully, “Shuri this is why you don’t have any friends other than that online Peter kid”.

Okoye placed a finger into her ear,“T’Challa, yes I’m on my way”.

She nodded and smiled tenderly at Bucky,“Excuse me.” 

Bucky returned the smile and headed towards the veranda to grab three lungfuls of fresh Wakandan air before going to face Steve again. Suddenly there was Okoye’s hand over his bicep which had him turning on his heels.

“And just, don’t freeze okay?” She squeezed his arm reassuringly before heading towards T’Challa.

_ Don’t freeze _ , Bucky thought to himself over and over again as he stood watching the night sky. He was really going to do this. He knew that Steve would never abandon him, after everything he’s done for Bucky, everything they’ve been through together. It comforted him but also a swell of guilt grew in the pit of his stomach, was he exploiting Steve’s dedication to Bucky so he could get some _ gay crush _ off his chest and feel better about it? 

He tapped the railings as he leaned over them slightly to better catch the breeze and the setting sun.

No, it wasn’t stupid and it wasn’t selfish. He was himself again for a reason and how he felt, feels about Steve is so large within him that he’s sure if he killed it he’d be nothing but a pile of ash and a metal arm.

He padded back into his quarters muttering Okoye’s phrase under his breath. The shower was hissing with life and steam was pouring from the open bathroom door. The music was also crackling with life but by the sound of it Steve had carried one of the speakers into the bathroom with him. The steam was blisteringly hot, just like he used to shower back in the Brooklyn winters. He’d leave the door open and let the steam seep out of the bathroom at some attempt at heating the rest of the apartment. He’d end up using all of the hot water but Bucky didn’t mind so long as it kept the cold off his lungs.

“Hey, Buck. Can you turn the music up?” Steve yelled through the bedroom.

Rudy Vallee’s  _ Same Old Moon _ became audible through the open door. Everything had changed but not the things that mattered. The same sun still rose, the same moon still hung in the sky and the same oceans still enveloped the shore. The world had changed, in some ways for the worse but mostly for the better. He knew he could be himself freely now, regardless of how Steve fit into that picture. That both excited and terrified Bucky right through the metal bone and sinew. 

“Song is kinda fitting don’t ya think?” Bucky stood by the open door so Steve could hear him better. He could hear Steve singing lightly along with the music.

“What?” mumbled Steve through the steam.

Bucky shrugged, “Everything is so different, the buildings, science and people to an extent I guess but the moon is the same now as it was when this song was written?” and before Steve could respond or laugh at Bucky for getting too sentimental he added, “Except now someone has, multiple people have been on the moon, like literally  _ on the fucking moon. _ ”

Steve laughed heartily and then let his tone soften and grow sentimental “I would have loved to have seen your face when that happened.” 

Bucky had always dreamt fondly of that ever since he’d found out about the moon landings. He was always slightly bitter that the world had taken that moment from them.

He cleared his throat and leaned on the door frame, “Steve, you massive sap.” He hoped that Steve could hear the grin in his voice. 

“Shut up!” Steve barked playfully as he turned off the shower, “I thought you’d love the future, you always loved space!” Bucky could hear Steve’s footsteps tread carefully through the puddles on the floor of the vast Wakandan shower. The shower itself was almost as big as their old apartment, “I remember when you stole that Buck Rogers comic”

Bucky chuckled and took a step back from the door.

“Yeah!” he exclaimed enthusiastically,  “and you made me take it back, but they didn’t take it because it was so dog eared cause i’d read it a hundred times”, He remembered a 10 year old Steve dragging him back to the street vendor by his coat tails forcing Bucky to begrudgingly hand over the comic, his arms folded over the book forcing Steve to wiggle it out from his grip. 

“I remembered that’s how I got my nickname, Bucky” He remembered this now. He wasn’t even sure he remembered this the day he fell, but now it was as clear as orion's belt on a summer evening. 

Steve made a soft noise in recognition,“Everyone used to call us Buck and Rogers didn’t they!?”

They did and from then on little James Barnes, now going by Bucky grew ever more attached to anything to do with Buck Rogers. He talked about it incessantly, used any money he could to buy the comics and forced anyone he could do to listen to the radio shows with him. Steve and everyone else just thought he loved space and wanted to save the future someday, this was in part true but mostly he just loved the way his new nickname sounded against Steve’s last name,  _ Bucky Rogers _ . 

Steve walked out of the bathroom with a lush white towel hung around his waist and one hand rubbing another over his unruly blonde hair.

“I’d always thought that it was because of your middle name, this is a much better story!” Steve’s eyes were bright and playful and his skin was clean and close to glowing. Bucky tried to keep his eyes to Steve’s face but that was still the most distracting part.

Steve made a huh sound and placed the towel from his hair on a desk chair,  “Strange how life imitates art”

“I’d hardly call pulp fiction novels art,  _ plus _ we were only frozen for like seventy years, Steve.”

Steve rolled his eyes and scoffed,“Semantics, Buck.”

He paced forward towards the centre of the room holding the fold of his towel securely and looking to the pile of red white and blue at the foot of Bucky’s bed. Bucky who was now sat cross legged at the head of the bed watched him amused. 

“Can you pass me those trousers?” Steve winced as he caught sight of the ring of dirt surrounding them on the floor.

“No they have actual blood on them and I don’t think it’s yours”

“What am I supposed to do?” Steve crossed his arms over his chest, framing his pecs and shoulders in a triangle of lean muscle. Bucky felt his eyes roaming, he wanted to drink in every ounce of Steve incase the conversation he was about to bestow on them went horribly, horribly awry. 

“Here take these, I got ‘em out whilst you were in the shower. I guess they should fit.” Bucky threw the ornately patterned blue slacks he had in his hands Steve’s way. He fumbled as he caught them by one of the legs.

Steve turned around and shucked the towel from his waist and quickly pulled the trousers up in one fluid movement. Fortunately this didn’t phase Bucky, they’d lived together and been through a war together. He’d seen plenty enough of Steve’s alabaster skin for his heart to sputter only slightly. 

Steve whipped around again to face Bucky. He pulled at the slight tightness of the fabric stretched across his thighs. 

“So a beard?” Bucky mentioned, causing Steve to look up from the material stretched across his legs.

He rubbed his chin, feeling the dark blonde bristles that adorned it,“I'm not sold”. He moved into the room perched next to Bucky on the foot of the bed. 

Bucky could smell a mixture of coconut and that scent that he couldn’t ever place but was so undeniably Steve, “I didn't even know you'd be able grow a beard, I like it, actually."

“Actually?” Steve scoffed and raised his eyebrows, “Sounds like bullshit to me.”

Bucky shook his head, the strands of hair whipping his face in the exaggerated motion.

“Apparently beards are in, like,  _ sexy  _ now” responded Steve bashfully. Bucky thought it was funny that he always rejected the notion that he could ever be sexy when he was one of the most attractive people he’d ever seen in this century and the one before it.

“Oh so that's why” Bucky grinned, his eyes gleaming as he threw Steve a wink.

Steve rubbed his chin again in thought, “More like, finding a razor wasn’t my top priority whilst being on the run.”

Bucky mirrored Steve’s motion and touched his own stubbled jaw, “Has it got past the itchy stage yet?”

“Yeah, feel.” and before Bucky could object Steve had grabbed Bucky’s palm and held it to his face. He was warm and soft, almost exactly how he’d imagined. He paused before letting his fingers roam slightly against the soft bristles. Steve repositioned his hand to hold Bucky’s wrist. He prayed that Steve couldn’t feel the hike in his pulse as he imagined tipping back Steve’s jaw and placing a neat line of kisses along there. 

He pulled his hand away before he could get caught.

“Suits you” he muttered cheerfully, as Steve released his wrist. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry, I just thought Buck Rogers and his story was too good to be missed in a story about these two.


	3. Chapter 3

Steve moved to the sofa at the foot of the large bed, the fabric was a deep red with exotic flowers interwoven. It was a long way from the bottle green chesterfield sofa that they’d dreamed of having in their little shared apartment but it was beautiful nonetheless. Steve brought his legs onto the sofa and stretched like a cat in a sunbeam. He smiled serenely as all his muscles relaxed. He moved his hand over the TV remote, just for a moment. Bucky peered over at the flat screen TV but it remained black.

Bucky moved to perch on the arm of the sofa, he figured that Steve deserved his rest and he was worried that he would combust like a dry leaf on a bonfire if he got too close.

Steve hummed and smiled and broke the silence, “Natasha and Sam are good, they’re still in the UK.”

Warmth bloomed in Bucky’s chest at the mention of their names. He’d worried about them, about what they had to give up to help Steve. There was a cosmic entanglement between him and Steve, or whatever you wanted to call this situation, but Natasha and Sam were just  _good people_ wanting to help out a friend.

“Sam as painful as ever?” Bucky asked, trying to restrain the fondness in his voice. Apparently, Wakanda had made him soft. Shuri told him that he’d always been this way but Bucky tried to convince her that the sunlight and her kindness had spoiled him. She just told him, ‘ _Case in point’_.

Steve smiled back, Steve never had a problem with letting his emotions display so vividly on his face like red paint on white canvas, “The very same.”

Bucky nodded, satisfied.

“I think they’re fucking” Steve bluntly interjected Bucky’s moment of contentedness. Bucky thought that if he’d have had slightly more spit in his mouth that he would have choked on it and died right then.

“They’re what?” Bucky crossed his arms, “Damn I was hoping I could try and set Natasha up with Okoye.” He didn’t really think that, all that much but it was a way of testing Steve’s 21st century thinking, just in case.

Steve grinned and looked thoughtful,“D’yknow what, I can see it.”

Bucky tried to let the relief on his face look as far from relief as he possibly could.

The grin on Steve’s face suddenly grew into something more cunning, “Knowing them, I don’t think they’d be adverse to her joining them.”

“Steve!” Bucky exclaimed “The twenty first century has ruined you!”

Steve threw his hands up playfully and smirked,“You know damn well I haven’t changed a bit.”

That was true, Bucky remembered Steve poking about his sexual exploits. He only blushed the first 28 times he did ask Bucky. The number felt very salient in his head, maybe he had kept track on purpose.

Bucky rolled his eyes,“You’re maybe,  _slightly more_ annoying”.

Bucky poked at Steve’s legs, indicating for him to move them to let him sit down. The sofa isn’t small but it is with two super soldiers on it. Steve lifts his legs and begins to turn then Bucky plonks down. Suddenly, the lower half of Steve’s legs collided with Bucky’s lap and Steve gave him a look of a cat who’s perfectly content snoozing on someone’s lap despite any intention of that person wanting to move in the next few hours.

He stared at the ornate pattern on Steve’s trousers. He was unsure on where to place his hands. He wanted to skirt his hands across the softness of the blue material, like like testing the water of a lake.

“You met many people in Wakanda?” Steve asked curiously.

Bucky shook his head softly, “Not unless you count Shuri or… goats. They have so many goats here.”

“No girls?” Steve’s tone piqued, he’d always been interested in Bucky’s girls. He hated that Steve and everyone else always called them that. There was a mixture of emotions behind it, sometimes it was anger sometimes it was sadness, but most of the time it was guilt. Guilt that he could never belong to them like they gave themselves to him. He always told himself that it was necessary for the time and even for a time he thought he could cure himself by being with enough pretty girls, with their milky thighs, soft curves and cascading hair but that just made the hole himself grow deeper and wider.

Bucky simply shook his head, knowing that anything else would reveal too much.

“I would have thought they'd be throwing themselves at you”

“Have you seen T’Challa and M’Baku?” Bucky let out a quick chuckle, but his tension and nerves were palpable. Bucky went stiff and held his breath. He had to say something. He felt like a broken pot filled with hot water and glued together at the cracks. He thought it best to just pour the water away rather than let it seep through the cracks and spill all over, uncontrollably.

He took another breath without letting go of the other, “Steve, I gotta tell you something.”

Steve pulled himself into an upright position, placed one of his legs on the ground and leaned in slightly, concern wild across his face. He felt like bolting, to run into the forests surrounding Wakanda and never looking back. Perhaps he could lie, tell Steve that Shuri couldn’t fix him, that his mind was just as scrambled as that day on the bridge but he couldn’t possibly do that to Shuri and like Steve would believe that anyway. He exhaled heavily.

“Steve” Bucky found the warmth in Steve’s eyes, “I’m gay”.

Bucky fought the urge to bury his face in the metal and flesh of his hands. Bucky’s heart beat so hard and loudly it was the only thing he could hear, he could barely decipher Steve’s gentle, “What?”

Bucky was dazed for a moment and he was too distracted by trying to keep his stomach acid where it belongs to pay much attention to Steve’s tone. He decided to keep it pragmatic, either Steve would find it either informative or at least amusing, “Well, it’s like how you like women, I like men. Y’know sex stuff.”

“I know what gay is you jerk, I'm just surprised” Steve smiled that familiar tender smile, the one that felt Bucky hoped and wished that Steve had reserved only for him.  

“Why?” he choked out, trying not to get lost in the fantasy.

“All the da… women?” Steve leaned forward again, his dark eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

Bucky rubbed his forehead, trying shield his eyes from Steve,“I didn't have much choice back in the day, I couldn't openly be with the person I wanted to.”

Steve looked less confused but far from satisfied, “Okay Buck”.

Bucky felt Steve’s leg that was still slung over him go stiff. Bucky looked over him again, his shoulders grew firm and square, his angular jaw thick with tension.

“How’d you know?” Steve asked. Bucky focused on the mole on Steve’s cheek, it moved as his jaw unclenched.

Bucky just about knew when boys his age would talk about actresses and pretty girls in their class and didn’t really understand. He knew a little more when the same boys would fumble with their words and wring their hands at a chance to talk to a girl and Bucky never understood why they couldn’t be smooth and relaxed just like him. He knew pretty much for sure when he just turned 17 and fooled around with the son of one his mom’s friends one drunken evening when Steve was out of town. However, simultaneously he knew deep down constantly, and it burned like swallowing hot coals whenever Steve even looked in his direction. “I just always have, times are different now, it’s okay”.

Steve nodded again. Steve still hadn’t unclenched his jaw but still hadn’t told Bucky everything was okay either. The limbo was almost tearing Bucky in two.

“Just fellas?” Steve asked, his plump lips hanging open with the ‘a’, his Brooklyn accent always was the strongest when he was trying to figure out a problem. Steve practically sounded like a cartoon character whenever they were in a particularly tight squeeze during the war.

“Of course just fellas, what else is there?” Bucky shrugged. If he liked girls he wouldn’t be in this mess, “You can’t have both”.

Steve made a quiet ‘ _huh_ ’ sound and clenched his jaw again, “Why not?”

“I mean...” Bucky emulated Steve’s small ‘ _huh_ ’ from earlier. He supposed there was nothing wrong with liking both. It suddenly became crystal clear to him that he was so wrapped up in the black and the white that there was a whole rainbow inbetween, “Yeah, why not both I guess”.

Steve leaned back into the sofa, clearly mulling over everything. Bucky thought Steve was taking it pretty well considering his best friend had been lying to him for seventy years.

And to Bucky it did feel like seventy years, he felt his bones age and his skin wither with every day. He felt the weight of every trigger he’d ever pulled and every life he’d ever ruined. Before he could remember anything too saliently he was wiped, every memory that began to bleed it’s way to the surface disappeared as quickly as the electricity could pass over his grey matter. But Steve, he never really forgot Steve, not down to his core. He was left with the memories of memories, memories of the essence of Steve and their relationship. He remembered Steve as a time of day, he remembered him as the peach dawn and golden sunrise. He remembered him as the blue expanses of a summer day and heat of the August sun. He remembered him as the inky blackness of the December sky and the stars, like a swarm of fireflies that filled it.

“Please don’t think less of me” Bucky whispered, almost pleading, “for not telling you earlier.”

Steve looked away from his spot on the ceiling and peered at Bucky with those clear blue eyes.

“Buck,” he shook his head “why would I ever think less of you”

Steve had a way of doing this, making people feel kind of silly because of how obviously he cares about them and so furiously and deeply. It was always so obvious to Steve even when it wasn’t to others.

Bucky felt like an idiot for ever doubting it for a second.  


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shout out to @avengingbarnes and @eternalgoldfish for being the best betas in the world.

There was a time in Bucky’s life when he would have  been fine just staying in the closet. It was easier and safer. 

He’d have settled down with a petite blonde and had two kids and a white picket fence, and it would be that, ‘ _ just fine _ ’. Back in the day just fine is what most people had, hell, even strived for when the winters in the Central Park shanty towns grew particularly cold and the only jobs available were boondoggles at best. He’d have grown old with his wife and he would have loved her. He’d have loved her tightly and unconditionally but he wouldn’t be in love with her. His biggest fear would be that one day she’d find out about him, the way his pupils widened and his breath sharpened when they watched a movie with a particularly beautiful actor or the way he’d jump to the defense of gay rights, probably too quickly and steadily for someone in the 1950’s. 

But those were all things he could explain away. 

An appreciation of beauty and the arts would fall from his lips in the darkened movie theatre, his time growing up in his poor neighbourhood would mean that he knew all kinds of folks who were just people too. 

Then there would be the problem of Steve.

He knew that if Steve ever knocked on his door with a cherry pie and wife with cherry lips, he’d be exposed as a flame in a hail storm. Perhaps his wife would have shown him a quiet mercy and let him live out the rest of his days with her in suburbia with his 9 to 5 job and his terrible secret. It wasn’t just the thought of not being able to have him too, Bucky had made peace with that long ago, but the voice in Bucky’s head told him it wasn’t right or fair on whichever kind soul he’d conned into marrying him. 

So ‘ _ just fine _ ’ merged into ‘ _ just alone _ ’.

He thought about clinging to whatever miraculous life Steve had chosen to live, showering his children and his wife with affection like a good uncle would, but that would have been too close and too painful, even more so than his hand slipping out of Steve’s that day in Switzerland. So, he quickly made peace with his burden and chose to keep it locked in solitary cage for safe keeping.

But the future made him greedy, hungry for something he couldn’t have and the future gave him more in steady drips. Even under Hydra there was still something within him, even though he’d been fried more than the oil at a cheap burger restaurant. 

He watched the teddy boys and the beatniks during the fifties, with their fondness for black and hair gel. He’d managed a couple hurried blowjobs behind smokey bars before he could get scrambled again. 

He liked the sixties and the seventies, especially  the week he avoided going back to Hydra, just for a little while. He had found his way to California and some reason it reminded him of Steve, even though Steve had been long gone from this earth and even further gone from his memories. But in California, searching for the memory of the memory of Steve felt a little less like trying retrieve a diamond from the bottom of Marianas Trench. He felt a little closer to Steve with his body wrapped around a blonde Englishman who was just trying to feel something too. 

Bucky didn’t like the eighties as much, they were a mess of dirty neon and diriter politicians - at least Bucky owned up to his murders. 

In the eighties, everything was rushed, from his missions to sex with the pinstriped businessmen. He learned that people like him didn’t need to hide as much, even though everything inside him told him to bolt when a beautiful man touched him in in public. But he wasn’t aware for long enough to gain even a semblance of himself again. 

It turned out that was everyone’s experience with the eighties. 

This future really spoiled him, though. He was living a freedom that he had no right to have. He hadn’t fought for it, he’d just woken up there, scrambled and lucky. Bucky had grown up with Steve and Steve having to fight for everything good in the world, and now Bucky could live the life he wanted in some places without the need of the fight and it was just so unfair. He’d finally made peace with solitude and suddenly he didn’t have to. 

“Steve,” Bucky’s voice cracked. 

This future in particular, the one with Steve dozing lazily by his side under the amber lamp light, spoiled Bucky to the core. He was living a life he didn’t deserve to have in a thousand lifetimes. There were so many unequivocally good people in the world who didn't get to feel this way and this guilt burned him from the inside out. Because Bucky didn't just have blood on his hands, he was practically drowning in it, struggling to stay afloat in the midst of lives he’d ruined. Perhaps if this was 1945 and they were in Brooklyn again, Bucky had never fallen from the train, then things would be different. He could tell Steve how he felt in fear of the time but not in fear of Steve or the guilt he felt towards him. He didn’t deserve any of this future, least of all Steve.

“Mmhmm” Steve responded, his eyes lazily flicking over Bucky’s face.

Bucky wanted to apologize but there were only so many times he could say sorry without the words turning into an amalgam of meaningless noises. The guilt and apologies were white noise in his own head. He  was worried that if he tried to say any of them out loud he’d choke and die on them. Maybe it’d give Steve a chance to live without him. 

“I’m sorry, Steve” Bucky blurted out, his heart in his mouth and his ears ringing. “For everything.” The words had begun to tumble from his lips uncontrollably. “For not being stronger,” he gulped in air heavily but it did nothing, “for not fighting Hydra better,” his mind flitted back to Steve's expression when he told him he was gay and he swallowed down that acidic wave of tears he didn’t want to display, “for not coming out to you sooner,”  _ being in love with you,  _ “for forgetting you.”

“Bucky,” Steve sighed Bucky’s name like he was exhaling air, like it was integral to his very existence. “Listen to me. That wasn't your fault, it wasn’t you.” He leaned forward in the lamplight and his tone grew firmer, “I know it feels like it was but you are  _ you _ now.” Bucky could see that his face was sincere and unwavering, that  _ he fucking meant it _ .

“James Buchanan Barnes, born March 1917.” Steve smiled fondly. “A funny, kind, handsome and  _ good man. _ ” 

“Okay,” Bucky sighed and acquiesced. 

“ _ Okay. _ ” Steve smiled brightly and knocked his knee against Bucky’s. “You didn't forget me though really, bud, we wouldn't be here if you did.”

Bucky took an extended breath before returning the playful knock. He paused and turned his body away from Steve, with Steve’s noble soul that shone so brightly through him like the brightness of a star that Bucky couldn’t look directly at without the risk of going blind. 

He could feel how the tension within him built up again until a warm hand intertwined with his own. It felt like he should flinch but he didn’t. It was the same warmth against his palm that he felt beneath the thatched roof in a deserted town in France.Steve’s long fingers squeezed softly as Bucky rotated back towards Steve. Peace washed over his anxiety riddled body like it did that night. 

Even in the dimness of the room and the amber lamplight that filled it, Steve’s blue eyes sparkled like the water beneath a rowboat lost at sea, and for a second Bucky could swear that something within them shone as if he was the shore.

Bucky broke the tension, his voice crackled in his dry mouth, “Used to put newspapers in your shoes.” It came out muffled, like an old man musing at something long gone but treasured. It was of his fondest memories. 

“We’ve done that one already, Barnes.” Steve grinned, his elevated cheeks catching the low lamp light.

Bucky chuckled and carefully pulled his hand from Steve’s and rested it on the back of the couch.

Steve coughed quietly and carefully reset the momentum. “Do you remember that one summer when we managed to get across to Staten island, we couldn’t pay for the ferry and you charmed the ticket lady whilst I ducked under the railings?”

“I’m surprised you did that.” Bucky moved hands to fiddle with the tie in his hair. He thought about pulling it down so he would have something to do with his hands, if only to put it up again.

Steve grumbled like a child with an enforced bedtime, “It was just after the depression and they were charging folks an obscene amount just to cross the river!” he threw his hands up before crossing them over his chest. Then a little smile spread across his face and he relaxed his broad shoulders. Bucky could almost hear his skin sliding against the fabric of the sofa. 

Steve said, “ _ Plus, _ Betty’s ice cream shop had the best ice cream in all of New York, obviously we had to get there somehow.”

Bucky shot him a knowing look before remembering something wholly more important. “I almost forgot, Rogers, _ Vanilla _ is your favourite flavour.”

Before Steve raised his eyebrows and shrugged, Bucky put his hands on his hips, puffed out his chest and feigned a terrible southern accent, “All the better with good ol’ American apple pie!” Bucky could feel the righteousness surge through him as he leaned into his version of Steve’s classic power pose whilst Steve just smirked and rolled his eyes.

“Why the accent?” Steve asked, whilst he hooked his hand around Bucky’s forearm pulling it away from his hip. 

Bucky shrugged. “Dunno, it just felt organic. Trying to bring my own to the character.”

Steve laughed but it was shallow and disingenuous. Steve did always have a tough relationship with Captain America. It should’ve been easy, playing a character so close to himself, but Steve once told him it was hard to tell where Steve ended and Cap began.

Steve broke Bucky's chain of thought by balling his hand into a fist enthusiastically and announcing, “I fucking loved that ice cream though.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t Betty that you loved?” Bucky winked and jibed Steve in the ribs. Finally getting back around to that knowing look he’d shot Steve earlier. 

Steve blushed, the way he always did. Bucky knew that if you blinked you’d miss the rose hue creep along Steve’s cheeks, the hue Bucky was only so good at recognising because he had spent so long looking.

Steve let out a chuckle. “She sure was something,” he mumbled whilst cupping the back of his neck with his palm, “What a shame she can’t see me now, maybe I’d have gotten a date.” He hummed.

Bucky scanned his eyes over Steve, trying to stay on the safe side of hungry, “You were a catch back then and you’re a catch now, just  _ heavier. _ ” 

Steve shook his head, “You don’t mean that.”

“I do,” Bucky nodded his head so decisively it would be foolish for Steve to disagree with him. “Now at least the whole world sees what I’ve always seen.”

Steve blushed the other way that Steve blushed, that bright unmissable magenta. Back in the day Steve would joke and ask Bucky if he’d been having a stroke.

“I mean before the whole, y’know wanted criminal thing” Bucky added before he could add anything else. 

Steve rubbed the healing wound on his forehead. It was deep and clean and was probably caused by a blade of some description. Suddenly the memory of the day on the bridge came back to him, the way he’d come at Steve with that knife. 99% of him was filled with guilt but the other 1% thought that was fucking cool. He wasn't going to tell Steve that, well at least not for a while anyway. 

Steve groaned as he poked the gash lightly and inquisitively. “Still feeling the repercussions of that.”

Suddenly, the wound started bleeding again, obviously not appreciating the prodding. Steve should have known not to do that, especially after the hundreds of times he’d patched himself up after an argument had gotten particularly nasty. It was difficult to see but hard to miss the dark purple bruise that had bloomed like a galaxy across Steve’s bare ribs. Bucky could almost hear the crack of the bones snapping on impact. However, regardless of how nasty Steve looked, Bucky could guarantee the other guy would look infinitely worse. 

 

Steve hummed, whilst looking at his bloody finger. He craned his head around the room looking for something to wipe it on before proceeding to just lick off the small amount of blood on his finger tip rather than risk staining something of T’Challa’s. Bucky laughed before Steve shrugged seemingly pleased with his decisive course of action.

And here, in a blink and you'd miss it moment, he was his Steve again, resourceful and dramatic, with his crooked nose and boney shoulders sat on their shitty couch in Brooklyn. But for the first time since the ice he didn't need to stay this way, to cling to the way it was because for once he felt like the future belonged to him too. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> your feedback & support gives me life!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter is super beefy, I didn't think it should be broken up. I'm really grateful for your readership and support, I hope you enjoy this beefy boy

 

Bucky slowly counted the freckles on Steve’s body. It was clear he’d been in the sun, the light freckles spread like a galaxy across his alabaster skin. This reminded him of the summer of 1935 in the Hoovervilles when Steve’s mom had lost her job. They’d clambered on top of the roof of an abandoned building and stripped off everything but their underwear and sipped beers Bucky had taken from work in replacement of a fair wage. Bucky’s skin grew olive in the sun’s rays whereas Steve’s Irish skin grew pinker and more speckled everyday. Steve would perch his small frame on a disused crate whilst he sketched the lean muscle that covered Bucky’s outstretched body and Bucky pretended to doze in the Brooklyn heat. Every now and again, Bucky would open an eye, just a crack, to see the concentration on Steve’s face. It was scrunched in focus, so much he hadn’t noticed the blonde strands hanging in his eyes. 

Here was Steve, thick with bulky muscle and hair adorning his chest. His face was similar but not the same, it was weathered and more masculine but in no way less beautiful than the slight beauty of 1935. Bucky flicked his eyes over Steve’s lips and the soft hairs around them. Everything had changed but the nebulus freckles still in the same formations across Steve’s skin.

“Buck, are you okay?” Steve asked, pulling himself up from the slump of the sofa, his abs flexing slightly as he did so. He pulled a small smile, his plump lips flicking up at the corners. Bucky’s stomach flipped like his mother cooking on shrove Tuesday. 

“Just fine, Steve.” Bucky could feel the blush raging up his cheeks like a wildfire. He tried to focus on the soft melody of  _ What’s New _ rather than the strange domestic comfort of the two of them sharing silence in the ambient lamp light. “They used to play this song in the dancehall on fourth, you remember?”

“Mmhm.” Steve nodded and then opened his mouth to speak. His eyes were clearly trying to say something. He closed his mouth before pausing and then trying again. “I remember Dorothy Davis lookin’ at you like you hung the stars that night,” he said with a soft smile.

Bucky could see her large brown eyes when he closed his own. She smiled up at him, her scarlet lipstick stretching around the whites of her teeth. Bucky thought he could get lost in the depths of her dimples, if he was that way inclined. He remembered the feel of her dress under his palms, the way the material would wax and wane as she moved over the dance floor. The sadness and guilt within him grew like morphine when he remembered the way her perfume smelled like clementines and nutmeg and when they kissed, the way he could feel her heart flip as their lips touched but the way his own would stay completely static. He felt awful.

He swallowed the harsh sadness before speaking, “I heard she got married to Bobby from down the docks, I’m glad she found someone special.”

Steve nodded thoughtfully. They both liked Bobby, he always treated Steve with the respect he deserved and that made him a good guy in both of their books. 

Steve extended his arm against the back of the sofa. Bucky hitched his breath. The heat from Steve’s arm radiated like a nuclear reactor, a reactor that Bucky wanted to caress soft circles against with fingertips.

Steve looked up at Bucky with curiosity painted all over his beautiful face. “D-did you have anyone special?”

“I did, I guess,” Bucky sighed.

“Who was he?” Steve stammered, leaning his face into the palm on the top of the sofa. Bucky tried to avert his eyes from the newly formed bulge of Steve’s bicep. He stared at the rough skin around his fingernails and fought the urge to pick nervously.

“I didn’t catch any of their names,” Bucky grumbled, digging himself further into the resentment well. As he drummed his fingers on the seat of the sofa his tone grew coarse and snarky. “I’m surprised they didn’t come forward after the war. A sordid gay affair with Captain America’s right hand man would have been worth a pretty penny.”

Steve looked confused but his expression was soft and open. “Would it be so bad now?” His voice was deep and sincere. 

Bucky moved his hand over his lips and spoke hesitantly, “You’re the only one who knows now and maybe Shuri.” He sceptically narrowed his eyes. “She says that she didn’t infiltrate my thoughts but I-I’m not so sure.” 

Steve laughed brightly whilst shaking his head. Suddenly, Bucky felt a swell of warmth contact his hand, he looked down to see that Steve had accidently dropped his hand on top of his. 

Bucky felt his heart in his throat and was concerned that Steve could feel his heart rate sputter in his hand. He collected himself slightly before clumsily adding, “and I’m sure neither of you will snitch.”

“Y’know there were all these theories that you and I were a thing,” Steve mumbled before registering the position of his hand. He swiped his hand away quickly. Bucky could swear he’d felt Steve’s thumb trail softly across his knuckles.

“Were there?” Bucky swallowed and stayed stiller than when he used to take a perfect shot with his sniper.

“Yeah, Tony showed me some articles and academic papers on it.” Bucky half expected Steve to groan at the mention of Tony’s name but he didn’t. Steve’s face remained unaltered and enthusiastic. “It was interesting stuff, someone said something about a closeted Captain America being the perfect metaphor for the US, the appearance of freedom but not really...”

“That’s a little deep, Rogers,” interrupted Bucky, before Steve tried to say anything that burst the neat little bubble that was forming around the two of them, even if it was just in Bucky’s head. Bucky stood up, trying to get away from the situation that he’d been trying to get to all night.

Steve looked a little dejected and peered up at Bucky who was now stood, arms crossed and toying with the hem of his sleeve. Steve’s chest puffed as he took a large inhale before beginning to talk again. “At first he showed me some very beautiful but very pornographic writing which made me think that academia had changed a lot since our day. Turns out it was just something he’d found on the internet. Thought it would be a hilarious prank.” 

Steve looked at Bucky again, with something unreadable and dissermable plastered all over his face. There was a knot inside Bucky that told him that the look was embarrassment. He imagined that Steve had scoured his way through this kind of writing about someone he only had platonic feelings for. He wasn’t even with Steve when he did to laugh it off nervously and say it’s flattering but completely not valid, they could joke together and then forget about it. However, then there was sadness that peaked through Steve’s eyes like the daffodils on the first day of spring only to be frozen by a late winter chill. The prospect of sadness was wholly more terrifying than embarrassment. 

“Was it?” Bucky asked inquisitively, pulling back the urge to spray a litany of apologies that weren’t his to give. 

Steve stared at Bucky blankly and started with a tone that was even more blank, “Not really.” 

Bucky paused and tried to decipher the clues in Steve’s voice but there was no rise nor fall, no crack or waver. “What does ‘not really’ mean?”

Steve looked at Bucky intensely. His lips parting in concentration. Something inside Bucky rattled like a starved animal in a cage, teased with meat. 

Steve stood up.

“Did you mind all this?” Bucky asked, his voice quivering like the hairs on the back of his  neck. 

Steve’s voice grew deep like the slow rumble of a train moving through a snowy passage, “No, not at all, I just don’t understand why you didn’t just come out sooner?” His face was soft, but he avoided Bucky’s grey eyes. His long eyelashes cast shadows on his cheeks as he inspected the glass shards slowly pushing themselves out of his hands. He winced as he helped a couple along and then moved to assemble the shards in a neat pile next to the stereo system. He perched against the desk, surprisingly daintily for someone that was 230lbs of thick muscle. 

Bucky peered at Steve, suddenly he felt brave and let his eyes roam over Steve’s shoulders and chest. His heart was pounding his throat and below his belt. He fought the urge to suck his bottom lip between his teeth. His mind fell back to the war.  Peggy had Steve pushed backwards against the drawing table, his long body outstretched as he leaned backwards into his hands. Peggy plucked his buttons open one by one and yellow light illuminated his chest. With each button, Bucky tried to pull his eyes away, to close the drawing room door and pretend he’d never seen anything. Until, she pulled Steve down by the open collar and pulled him into a messy kiss that Bucky wasn’t sure either of them would have been capable of. She’d just began to leave a trail of waxy red kisses down Steve’s neck when Bucky scattered quickly. He felt guilty about using Steve’s blissed out face when he was alone in the showers or in the barracks, but he had to have something.

Bucky inhaled sharply as Steve’s eyes locked with his own. Suddenly, panic drummed through his entire body. He didn’t want Steve to catch him staring hungrily, that was the worst possible situation. Perhaps pushing him away was for the best, just for now, until he could get his thoughts and wandering eyes in order. He snapped, “Oh I should have  _ just come out sooner _ , Steve? When could I have  _ just come out _ ? When I was a soviet assassin: murderer, torturer and gay? I think that would have been too much of a PR shit storm even for the Soviets!”

Steve’s eyes widened and he almost flinched at Bucky’s tone. “No, I mean back before all that?” He leaned back onto the palms of his hands on the desk, his muscles twitching as he did so. 

Bucky had to stifle a laugh because Steve was making this so damn difficult. He felt manic, his thoughts running away from him like a tasmanian devil hopped up on amphetamines,his mouth running faster than his mind telling him to stop pushing away his best friend.

“And have got possibly murdered by the guys at the docks?” Bucky hissed, regretting it instantly.

Steve’s forehead creased and his eyebrows pulled together like two electromagnets. “I mean to me, Buck! Don’t say I wouldn’t have been okay with it.”

Suddenly, a stifled laugh escaped from Bucky’s throat in a low scoff. “You wouldn’t have!”

 

Steve sprung from his position. “I would move hell on earth for you, I only want you to be happy. Don’t even start with that shit, Barnes!” He took two heavy paces in Bucky’s direction. Bucky could feel the anger like heat radiating off him.

Bucky didn’t argue with Steve. He only did it when he absolutely had to, primarily because Steve was terrible to argue with. He dug a hole, jumped in, tied himself down and poured concrete on the top. Luckily for Steve, and everyone around him, Steve always fell on the side that history favoured. It was easy to forgive Steve’s stubbornness when he was stubborn about basic human rights. When Bucky did want to change Steve’s mind, it was easier to plant the seed of an idea and let Steve come to his own realisation. Anyway, Bucky preferred to watch flowers bloom than pull out the weeds.

However, arguing with Steve was different now. It didn’t feel like he was trying to strangle a bear with dental floss like it used to, now it felt more like using a bald eagle as wrecking ball against The Lincoln Library,. “You couldn’t possibly have understood though!” Bucky hissed.

“Could I not?!” Steve barked.

In theory, Steve would have understood about him. Steve was understanding about everything and everyone with a cause. Bucky could have murdered a racist in cold blood and Steve would have helped him hide the body. Steve had faced his fair share of bullies and it was clear that he’d rather die fighting than stoop to their levels. But the gay thing, that would have just been in theory. 

“I  _ get _ everything you asshole,” Steve growled. Bucky suddenly felt very much at the bottom of one of Steve’s concrete filled pits.

“Oh do you? Wanting to fuck guys is an acquired taste even for Captain Empathy here!” He was already at the bottom of a pit, why not go lower? He’d chosen to push Steve away rather than own up to his feelings. Maybe one day Steve would forgive all this and he could try again.

“You know what?  _ Fuck you _ , Bucky” Steve scoffed, throwing his hands in the air. Bucky could see the moment where Steve forgot to wince when one of his cracked ribs made an audible click. 

“I’d be so lucky,” Bucky scoffed, rolling his eyes. Although his tone was sarcastic, there was a stark look of accidental sincerity in those grey eyes. Shit.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Steve didn’t appreciate the tone at all. He placed his hands on his hips dug his fingers into the bone and squared his shoulders. His body said fight, right up until it didn’t. Momentarily, his shoulders dropped and his face looked exactly like the time he told Steve he couldn’t remember him. It was a quiet version of grief, barely contained by his skin. Steve fought back because that’s what Steve did. But he would let Bucky try to kill him if he thought that was what Bucky needed.

Steve exhaled the quiet grief and squared his shoulders again.

Bucky’s ma had always said don’t make any decisions hungry or angry. He shouldn’t have tried to push Steve away, not when Steve would have stopped a supernova just for him. He wanted to gobble up every single word that had just left his mouth, he could see them flutter like angry butterflies into Steve’s face and then die from heartbreak as they looked  into the whites of Steve’s eyes. 

He should have just told Steve. He’d fucked up. By god, had he fucked up. 

“Nothing, I’m just being a dick.” Bucky’s voice became calmer. He used the tone he’d use when he was trying to disseminate a situation Steve had got them into when Bucky didn’t fancy a black eye or a cracked rib. He took a step backwards, just enough so he couldn’t feel Steve’s breath on his skin.

Steve took a step forward and shook his head. His voice grew inquisitive rather than angry or disappointed. This was worse,  _ much worse _ . Trying to pacify inquisitive Steve was like trying to diffuse an atomic bomb whilst wearing three pairs of oven mitts. 

Steve’s blue eyes narrowed. “No that’s not just you being a dick, I know exactly what that looks like.”

Bucky’s eyes locked onto Steve’s. “Just drop it.” 

“Tell me what’s wrong,” Steve pressed, undeterred by Bucky’s silent pleas, moving into his best friend’s space. His voice suddenly became softer, an openness to it that wasn’t there before. “Tell me what  _ I’ve _ done wrong.”

There was no hiding from it now. 

If he lied, Steve would know, and eventually Steve would drop it, but he’d bring it up next week or the week after. Bucky had grown tired of lying, to Steve and to himself. Everyone he cared about died not knowing Bucky entirely and for some unfathomable reason the person he cared most about was standing in front of him almost a century later, hair as blonde and eyes as blue as the day he’d fallen in love.  

“Don’t tell me you haven’t figured it out yet.” Bucky resigned, rubbing the back of his neck. His heart pounded like crazy in his chest. Every instinct within him told to flee, to run.

“What?” Steve asked, stepping forward, cocking his head slightly. 

“I’ve wanted  _ you _ since we were kids and I fought and fought to keep it and you a secret now the whole world...” he sighed, “I can deal with you not wanting me back, but I feel,  _ I know _ , so many people knew exactly how I felt it’s almost embarrassing.” Bucky’s hands were shaking like a restless child.

“Who knew?” Steve asked, before really realising what was going on. “What? What’s going on, Buck?”

“Shuri knew the second I said your name,,” Bucky mumbled. He grinned and shook his head while his hands rubbed the back of his neck. Because, of course Shuri knew. She probably orchestrated all of this. 

Despite his apparent confusion at Bucky’s ramblings, “Shuri knows everything, she doesn’t count!” Steve responded and flapped his hand, quickly fuelling Bucky’s suspicions. “Who knew?” 

It was clear that Steve still didn’t really know what Bucky was referring to but there was just something about the way Steve’s soft voice and softer smile made everyone want to open up and spill everywhere like an open truck on a freeway.

Bucky sighed. “The people who wrote that pornographic science journal and other people knew about me being gay and…” he couldn’t help but pinch the bridge of his nose in annoyance, “I thought it was just so wrong of you to see it in me too and not mention it!” The words tumbled out him like the tomatoes tumbling out of the truck. They splattered all over the road, making a huge mess but not really doing any damage. “That’s kinda why I got angry, kinda,” he paused and tried to leash his words, “I see that’s hypocritical now but… jeez I’m rambling, feel free to just stop me at any point.”

Steve placed a firm hand on Bucky’s shoulder. “Buck, hold on just slow down.” He squeezed as Bucky took a deep inhale. Bucky shrugged lightly before unabashedly melting into Steve’s touch.

Steve smirked. Bucky could tell there was something humorous about the way he scrambled with his words. Steve had never really seen him trip like this, aside from when they’d drunkenly trip over each other. Steve would sing dance hall ballads and Bucky would bite down his loose lipped tipsy marriage proposal.

Bucky gulped and decided it was time to stop haphazardly throwing fruit around the target and drop an anvil directly on it. 

“I’m in love with you Steve. Always have been.”

The air-raid sirens stopped wailing in Bucky’s head.

Surprisingly, Steve’s face was relaxed and he bit down on his lip in thought. He opened his mouth to speak before closing it again.

Bucky was more confused than ever and he’d been scrambled more than the cheap powdered eggs at an even cheaper diner.

Finally, with face set into something determined, Steve started, “Reading all that stuff just confirmed what I already knew.” 

Bucky screwed his face up in confusion. “You knew? About me?”

God, maybe the whole world did know about him. Maybe they left it out of the history books to save him a little dignity.

Steve sighed, “No, me.” 

There was that familiar drag at the end of the sentence, like Steve was wilfully holding back from tacking the word,  _ idiot _ to the end of it. 

“What about you?” By this point Bucky could feel his eyes narrow so much in confusion that he could barely see. He thought if someone simply said a math puzzle he’d go blind forever.

Then Steve smiled, a smile that he’d only ever imagined blooming over Steve’s face, like a sunset bottled at the source, with colours so beautiful and vibrant nobody would believe if he told them. He wouldn’t tell anyone though, because this time he could tell in the blues of Steve’s eyes and the curve of his lips, that this sunset was only for him.

“It’s always been you, Buck.” Steve ran his hand down from Bucky’s shoulder, not stopping until their fingers were intertwined. “I should have told you the day I pulled you off that table in Austria. Fuck, I should have told you that night before you shipped off.” He took a long, deep breath. For a moment Bucky thought about leaving some oxygen for him but he wasn’t sure if he’d need it, cause perhaps he’d died and gone to his version of heaven. “I just wanted to wait until you were you again, I didn’t want to put thoughts into a brain that wasn’t entirely yours.”

There were too many things going on in Bucky’s head and body for him to muster the concentration to pull his face into something that wasn’t a surprised gawp.

Suddenly, a white hot thought passed through his mind, “What about Peggy?”

Steve smiled a sweet smile but it was tainted with melancholy, “I loved her and I would have married her and I mean that from the bottom of my heart.” Steve paused, “But you.” Steve’s face glowed like the warmth of a fire on a December evening, the sunstience of a hot meal on an empty stomach and the sunset seeping through thin curtains onto bare floorboards. 

Despite the warmth that glowed inside him, he couldn't help but feel that familiar guilt. There was something heartbreaking about Steve faking his love for Peggy, even more so than his own lies. But he guessed that Steve had to survive and boy did Steve know how to survive. Bucky had to know though, “Wait, but you’re gay?”

Steve shook his head, “Bisexual is the future term for it I guess.”

“Bisexual” Bucky repeated back to him as he processed the word. He hadn’t really heard the term before but it made sense. 

“I always thought it would go away, like the rest of my aches and pains with the serum, but it didn’t. I guess it wasn’t something that needed fixing.” Steve lifted his palm to Bucky’s jaw. Bucky had to stifle his entire body from setting alight. “I always wanted to tell you but you were you and I was just happy having you by my side, whatever way that was.” 

Bucky wanted to tell him exactly the same thing. But there was something distinctly solmen about them both teetering on the cusp of something more, that neither of them were brave enough to jump. 

Steve removed his hand and slumped his shoulders and the absence of Steve’s hand felt like the absence of a jacket in a snowstorm. “And I’ve been waiting for the right time ever since the accords, and just now you told me you liked fellas and I should have just told you but I just froze up. I should have just said the damn words but instead I let you get angry.”

Bucky stayed silent. He tried to piece together the cascade of memories that were suddenly illuminated by a new light. They played in his mind like the old war films. Those historians obviously saw something in those reels of grainy footage. Bucky felt kind of stupid that he hadn’t, but it was hard to see the light between the the trees when you were lost in the forest. 

“Please say something, don’t just give me that look,” Steve stated, vulnerability wavering his voice.

Bucky felt like he must look like a puzzle, with all the pieces slotting into place. 

“Oh, I guess that makes sense, bisexual, like bicycle,” Bucky muttered absent mindedly whilst his entire relationship played back in front of his eyes, like a flicker book on cocaine. 

Steve laughed but still looked nervous, “Buck, please say something other than ‘bicycle.’”

Bucky laughed along with Steve and then sighed.

“Stevie,” Bucky didn’t think that Steve’s heart could grow any bigger than it already was. Even before the serum, he just thought his new body finally matched the size of the heart that resided within him already. He always thought that Steve’s passion and fire simply came from his inability to contain the heart that filled his tiny frame. But here, he could see it in the way Steve’s eyes glistened under the the thickness of his eyelashes and the pinkness that grew over his cheeks as Bucky uttered his name the way he did, like it was so obviously integral to his entire being. Bucky could feel it in the way that Steve lifted a shaking but sure hand upto Bucky’s bristled cheek and the electricity that skirted over his skin. He could taste it in the way they finally kissed, careful and slow but still felt like the Fourth of July fireworks that Bucky always told Steve they’d set off just for him. 

Bucky entwined a hand into Steve’s hair and deepened the kiss. He tried to disregard the taste of blood from the cut on Steve’s lower lip. It reminded him of when Steve would turn up late to their double dates, scruffy and beaten but surging with energy. Bucky would try and ignore the passion and goodness that emanated from him and focus on his own date, but there was nobody in this life or the next that captured Bucky’s attention than Steve did and for a few seconds when he’d clasp a hand over Steve’s neck in the dance hall he’d could pretend that Steve was his.

Bucky tightened his grip in Steve’s hair before he started to grin and laugh into the memory of the disastrous double dates. Steve’s lips quickly pulled away after colliding with Bucky’s smile rather than his tongue. Steve pulled away with Bucky’s hand still interwoven into his hair, he looked confused as hell but so completely, utterly and dizzily in love.

“Why are you smiling?” Steve asked, returning the soft grin. 

“There was a reason I’d always invite you on double dates, I’d always pretend I was on a date with you” Bucky chuckled, whilst bashfully focusing on the bristles of Steve’s beard. It had a lot of copper flecks in it.  “Oh, that sounds so dumb when I say it out loud!”

Steve laughed heartily, like it had been bottled up inside of him for far too long. He dropped his grip on Bucky as he composed himself again, “I used to do the same thing.”

Before Bucky could answer, ask him ‘ _ really? _ ’ in ardent disbelief, despite the fact that Bucky had just told him that he’d waited his entire life for this moment. That every birth and death of the days had culminated to this minutiae of a moment that would change their lives forever and Steve had simply held his hand and jumped with him. 

Steve surged forward and pulled him into another kiss. This time Steve wrapped Bucky’s body closer to his own. Bucky bit back a moan as he felt Steve’s hand roam under the thin cloth of his shirt. Bucky’s body responded by pushing backwards, resulting in a pile of muscle and 80 years of sexual tension heaped on the bed.

Steve let out a moan that was halfway between pain and pleasure. Bucky quickly and clumsily removed his body from Steve’s. 

“We should slow down,” Bucky stated as he knelt up and looked at the giant petrol coloured bruise that had recently doubled in size that had taken up residence across Steve’s chest, like the portal to another world. He tried to ward of the disappointment in his own voice like hadn’t fantasized about this moment ever since he knew what kissing was. 

“I’m fine,” Steve uttered, trying to convince Bucky with his best attempt at a flirtatious smile. It was dumber and cuter than anything he’d ever imagined before.

“Look not to be the sensible one, again,” Bucky shifted to sit on his feet, “You’re not fine, I don’t want you almost passing out in pain during our first time together.” Bucky examined Steve’s beautiful battered body, his eyes skirted over the tenting in Steve’s trousers. He absent mindedly licked his lips, his mind going lower than an expedition to the earth’s mantle. He could feel himself visibly bite back the thought of, _ ‘almost passing out for other reasons is fine though.’ _

Steve looked at Bucky, who looked like the visual equivalent of biting back the sounds of an orgasm. He grinned, “Okay Buck, finish the thought in your head.” 

He chuckled at his predictability and mumbled, “Almost passing out for other reasons is fine though.” He gave a innocent shrug and looked back down before meeting Steve’s eyes again, the blue in them barely visible by the blackness of how turned on he was.

Steve laughed and pulled Bucky into a hungry but tender kiss, far too tender for a man like him to deserve. A day ago Bucky wouldn’t have accepted any such tenderness. He could feel every emotion that had surged through him over the past few hours build up like a rain droplet building and growing heavier until the cloud couldn’t hold it any longer. 

Steve pushed away the droplet from his cheek and kissed the damp streak, he muttered ‘I know,’ into the warmth of Bucky’s skin and for the first time in a long time Bucky felt like someone’s sunshine rather than a tornado.

* * *

* * *

 

The next morning Bucky gazed at the man he’d fallen in love with so long ago. 

The early morning swelled in the room, the chiaroscuro lighting made Steve look like a renaissance painting. The strands of his hair splayed dramatically over the pillow, in a sea of gold and shadows as he slept. Bucky traced the pools of light on Steve’s face, from the illumination on his cheek bones to the stripe of light just hitting the tip of the nose that was still too big for his face. Steve was so beautiful. There was a warmness, an openness to his face now that Bucky had never seen in anyone else. Bucky just wanted to touch him as carefully as the light, as not to wake him. So, he closed his eyes in contemplation and delicately ran his fingers through Steve’s hair and a calmness bubbled in him that felt like a distant memory.

Steve shifted, the mattress creaking as he slung his arm over Bucky’s waist. The contact with his body made Bucky’s eyes flutter open.

Bucky felt the warmth of the Wakandan sun on his face as Steve stirred. The large scarred arm slung over his waist and the smell of that familiar body mixed with the smell of clean linen, brought him back to the night before. Steve’s large fingers tangled in his chestnut hair, his thumbs tracing small circles on the line of his jaw, a smile barely contained by plump lips and blue eyes that gazed at Bucky like his eyes unlocked the secrets of the universe. The last sentiment made his breath hitch and his body stiffen slightly and his heartbeat quicken in his chest. He glanced at Steve, the serenity on Steve’s face, the sun glowing through his blonde hair. Suddenly, the tautness in Bucky’s body dissipated. This was Steve, his Steve, a hundred years and a hundred wars didn't change that. 

Bucky loved this time of day, the ‘golden hour,’ Steve had called it back in New York, a paintbrush hanging from the corner of his lip as he painted the view from the fire escape, where the redbrick met the peach dawning sun. It was where places became warm, beautiful versions of themselves and people even more so. 

As Bucky carefully studied Steve dozing, he wondered if the person who came up with that term had met an angel one pink morning. He assumed that angels, with their golden hair and skin, glowed in the honey light. Or maybe that was just Steve.  

Steve's eyes twitched and opened again.

“Buck,” he whispered.

Bucky shifted in the bed and let out a small sigh. 

Bucky really wasn’t one for comfortable silences, even with Steve. For some reason a dull, uncomfortable pain swelled in his insides everytime he focused on the quiet around them and the firm line of Steve’s lips. He thought it was because silence gave the opportunity for something terrible to happen without warning or hesitation.

“Somethin’s on your mind, Buck?” Steve paused “Was last night a mistake?” Steve asked, bravely, only a small quiver dancing in his throat.

Bucky shook his head, the firmness on his face holding.

“Just thinkin'” he mumbled.

“About what?” Steve pressed hesitantly. 

Bucky’s face softened and his grey eyes flickered over the lines of Steve's face, “About when I first knew I was in love with you, like ‘ _ shit, fuck I’m done for kinda love. _ ’" 

“You have always had a way with words,” Steve chortled as he began toying with the hem of the sheet.

“Remember when you got me for my 21st birthday?” Bucky asked, outlining Steve’s relaxed muscles with his eyes.

“A winning smile and the promise to not get into a fight that day?” Steve smiled like saccharine. 

“No, but that wouldn’t have surprised me  _ at all _ . You are so bad with gifts,” Groaned Bucky. Steve was bad with gifts and even worse with dates. Luckily, Bucky’s birthday fell on Saint Patrick’s day and there was no way Steve’s Irish ass would ever forget that, even though it meant getting the odd shamrock themed gift. 

“Well, obviously not if this story is anything to go by!” Steve lifted his hand from the restraints of the sheet and shoved Bucky playfully.

Bucky quirked an eyebrow. “Touche”

Bucky began, “So you got me this little ray gun toy...”

Steve pulled himself up onto one shoulder, held out a finger and interrupted, “That’s the moment you chose?”

Bucky jibed at Steve’s large exposed shoulder. “You little prick you can’t choose these things.” Steve grinned smugly and shrugged, the whole bed rocked a little with the movement. “Do you want to hear the story or not?”

Steve held his hands up in submission. “Yes, yes obviously.”

Bucky’s eyes wandered to the window, where the palm trees tapped on the pane as they swaggered and swayed in the early morning breeze. “So, I’d had a shitty day and I came home and  you gave me this dumb little ray gun toy thing.”

Steve made a small noise in disbelief. “ _ 21st birthday? _ Are you sure?”

“Steve!” Bucky whined, whilst smacking Steve in the shoulder, hard. Steve playfully stuck out his lower lip, Bucky wanted to suck on it until Steve moaned out his name, but this story was important so he just shot Steve a 'cease and desist’ with the greys of his eyes. 

“It was this little Buck Rogers thing and by then I’d forgotten how my nickname came about. So then I remembered how I loved the idea of taking your last name as a kid, but back then I didn't understand why I loved that idea so much. When you gave me the toy the memory kinda hit me like a freight train. You had this stupid grin on your face like you'd wrapped the moon and given it to me and I wanted to become Bucky Rogers allover again. I loved you anyway but that had me hook line and sinker.” 

Steve looked at Bucky like the whole universe had been created just so he could exist within it. 

Steve coughed lightly and tried to hide the dusty pink blush that had become a permanent fixture on his face. “I’ve changed my mind, I like that story.”

Bucky smirked and thought about that little metal toy and wondered if it ever made its way out of their little place in Brooklyn. He also thought long and hard about coffee, just incase Shuri had implanted something in his brain and just in case that little something was linked up to a robot that could bring him coffee in bed. 

“Wanna hear mine?” Steve asked, his voice lowered thoughtfully.

Bucky nodded. He thought it may have been too eagerly but he'd just experienced the first day of the rest of his life and he’d decided that shame or guilt wasn't going to be a part of it. 

Steve grinned back just as eagerly. “You had the best ass I’d ever seen.”

Bucky rolled his eyes so hard he could almost feel them rolling away across the room before he tried to correct Steve, “ _ Have _ the best ass.” 

Steve made a high pitched murmur whilst shaking his unsure flat palm. “Have you seen T'Challa in the panther suit?”

Bucky laughed and shook his head. “You’re such a little punk you know that right?” 

 

**FIN**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big shout out to @avengingbarnes and @eternalgoldfish who are the best betas a girl could ask for.
> 
> HMU on Tumblr at get-ragnawrecked


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